Rafa and I met again and again. Countless engagements with no subtlety, only strength, speed, and skill. We both understood our bodies so well that finding and keeping balance was a simple matter. We could not knock one another off stride. We fought in the center of the circle, along the curved edge of the circle, nearly over the line of the circle. But we both knew intuitively where that line lay, and neither of us went over it. I moved him across the circle; he moved me. No wasted space. We used all that we had.
Before long both of us sweated. It pasted hair to foreheads, soaked into locks that clung to shoulders. Inconsequentially, as often happens despite most of the brain being focused on the activity, whatever it might be, a memory of ioSkandi swept by. My hair was shorn to the skin and blue tattoos colored my hairline. It was where I had lost my fingers. Where I had been trained in magery.
But this was not Meteiera atop stone spires; this was not even Skandi where the metri lived, the old woman who was my grandmother, who had cast out her daughter because she chose an unsuitable man. That daughter gave birth to a son in the sands of the South, even as she bled to death. Mother dead. Father dead.
But I had a son. And a daughter.
That son was with me, in a circle mere paces away from mine. The daughter, small yet, was at Beit al’Shahar, a home such as I never had. She was more fortunate than I, even than her mother, Delilah, who was raped repeatedly by a raider, family killed save for her brother. A brother who now was dead.
Beit al’Shahar. Where I had defeated Abbu Bensir twenty-five years after our first meeting at Alimat.
What would my shodo think? My shodo would undoubtedly tell me to focus on the dance.
But I had defeated Abbu Bensir. And I could defeat this man.
I was striped bloody by myriad cuts and slices. So it was with Rafa. We stretched our mouths in a rictus of effort, each of us, sucking air, gasping for it, filling our lungs as best we could. Sweat, reddened by blood, rolled down our bodies. I heard the chime of swords in the other circles. I dared not look. Not even a glance. Rafa would have me if I did.
Without an ounce of immodesty, only of acknowledgement, I realized that this must be what it was like to dance with me. Giving no ground, but offering unflagging blows of power coupled with weight, with quickness and agility despite being big.
Then Rafa went after my hands. Not with the edge of his blade, but with the flat. He brought it down in a smacking blow against my right wrist. In that moment three fingers and a thumb were not enough against his strength. The leather-wrapped grip slipped in my hand.
And he leveled another blow with the flat of his blade, this one landing across mine. My fingers, thumbs, and wrists were very strong, because I had worked to make them so, but the goal had never been to fight against the flat of a man’s blade wielded with such focused power. Probably no one else would think of it. But Rafa had. What made him dangerous was all the physical skills, which were substantial, but also his ability to think, to adjust, to create a maneuver unanticipated, and terribly effective.
My sword fell at my feet.
And I realized at that moment that Rafa danced to kill. Maybe it had never been about Umir and his bounty. Maybe it had always been about killing me. Maybe he had used the lie to alter my expectations, to buy him an edge when we entered the circle.
I had broken all my oaths. I was subject to none of the codes of honor. Rafa could change the stakes of the dance if he wished, and at any time. I had no chance even to swear. I had time only to lurch aside, diving as I had told Neesha to do; to roll and to rise, to briefly escape the threat of the bloodied blade. I held my arms out from my sides to aid balance, torso bent slightly forward, hands cocked up, one leg somewhat forward, one back, spread, as thighs and calves bunched. He chased me around the circle. He made me scramble, made me roll, made me leap and lunge. But none of his blows landed, and eventually I wound up right where I wanted to be.
I dove again, arms outstretched, reaching for my lost sword. My hands closed on the grip. I rolled away, rose up, defended against a blow coming down from the sky. He had committed himself to that blow, expecting me to either have no sword, or to grip it badly because I’d gone down hard to the soil to fetch it. I was on one knee, my sword stretched over my head. Blades met, scraped, screamed. I thrust myself up from the knee, met Rafa on his level—what should have been, and was again, my level.
Too dangerous, was Rafa.
So I went low with my sword, lower than he expected, and as his came down I ducked, then thrust with all my might and took him through the guts, hilt pressing belly, the balance of the blade exiting his spine.
Rafa was astonished.
Rafa was dead.
I let go of my sword as he fell. And when he landed flat on his back, dead weight pushed much of the blade back through his abdomen, so that the hilt and the grip stood up from his body.
Gasping for air, I walked away from the body, stood at the edge of the circle. I saw what I hoped to see: Del and Neesha. Their expressions were not alike. Del understood what had changed about the dance, what I’d gone through, how difficult it had been, how difficult it still was. She registered the cuts and slices, the bloody ribbons rolling down sweaty flesh, the ragged cadence of my breathing. Neesha was stunned into silence.
I bent over to catch my breath, hands on my hips. They hurt like hoolies, those hands. But now the gossip, the tall tales, would carry word that the Sandtiger, maimed as he was, still retained the strength, power, and quickness to defeat—to kill—a superb sword-dancer.
My breath ran a little easier. I stood up, still sucking wind, but not as I had before. With a forearm I wiped sweat away from my brow, from my burning eyes. Pushed sweat-pasted hair aside. Then I walked to the body, planted bare foot on its ribs, and jerked my sword from its guts.
I was now able to see, to take note, to examine the reactions of the spectators. The crowd stood in a ring around all three circles, eyes wide, mouths parted. Though I was certain a fair amount of wagering had gone on, no one moved to settle up. People stared. Some were stricken. Some surprised. Some simply stunned.
As well they should be. They had witnessed three simultaneous sword-dances—never done, to my knowledge, anywhere. They had witnessed the Sandtiger, as much in his prime now as he’d ever been. As far as they knew, I was.
I knew differently.
I’d come close to losing.
I’d come close to dying.
I looked for Mahmood in the crowd and found him standing away from people; undoubtedly the stud had made a few equine comments and gestures that encouraged everyone to give him room. The merchant’s face was ashen. His eyes were as wide as I’d seen them. Impossibly, they managed to widen a bit more when I walked toward him. One must guide the spectators away from the truth: that Rafa had nearly won.
“Mahmood, old friend…” I rested a hand on his shoulder, suppressed a wince, put a jovial tone in my voice. “I’ve worked up a bit of an appetite. Could you possibly find me some food?”
His mouth fell open. Then closed. “Of course. For you all. No doubt you have an appetite!”
I nodded. Was aware of them when Del and Neesha came up to flank me on either side. Mahmood backed, then turned the horses to lead them to his wagons.
Del, utterly expressionless, remained calm, said nothing. I noticed her bottom lip was swollen. Neesha, worried, reached out as if to grip my arm. “Don’t touch me,” I told him curtly.